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constructions

Monday, January 30, 2006

bicycle tour Vietnam

Tomorrow afternoon boyfriend and I are off to Ho Chi Minh City (by way of Amsterdam and Singapore). We're not there until 2nd of February and hopefully directly on our way to Bao Loc, which is where we'll start bicycling. This is our plan:

Bao Loc - Dalat: 110 km
Dalat - Phan Rang: 110 km
Phan Rang - Nha Trang: 107,5 km
Nha Trang - Tuy Hoa: 126 km
Tuy Hoa - Qui Nhon: 113 km
Qui Nhon - Sa Huynh: 116,5 km
Sa Huynh - Quang Ngai: 64,5 km
Quang Ngai - Hoi An: 121,5 km
Hoi An - Lang Co: 75 km
Lang Co - Hue: 60,6 km

I'll let you know how I'm doing.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

visiting scholars and web-presence

I wish I'd had a work-in-progress in a presentable stage for the PhD-workshops at our department yesterday and Monday. I didn't. Which meant I didn't have the opportunity to take advantage of our excellent visiting scholars this week: professor John Durham Peters (University of Iowa), professor Paddy Scannel (Westminster University), and professor Eric M. Rotenbuhler (Texas A&M University). Considering how interesting I found Peters book Speaking into the air I would of course have loved to have something to present.

No need to have a blog read by thousands. My visiting statistics show rather humble numbers, but people googling and searhing for stuff still reach my site. That's partly why I quite like having a blog. John D.P. had in fact read my post about his book and recognized me when we met at the workshop. I liked that.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

open/free wlans in Tromsø/ trådløst nettverk i Tromsø

Looking for free and open hotspots/wlan connections in Tromsø? Visit Cafe Flyt or Peppes Pizza. Or you can go to the library. There's no wireless there, but a couple of group-rooms where you can connect to their network via your laptop (using a network cable, if you don't have one with you, you can borrow one from the library).

I'm in Tromsø visiting my boyfriend who works here for the time being. Tromsø is extremely far north. It's January. There's no snow here. Unbelievably sad.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

collaborative web tagging workshop

Tagging and folksonomies - rather interesting topics, right? Check out the workshop 'Collarborative Web Tagging Workshop', which will be held in Edinburgh in May this year. Extended abstract is to be submitted before the 29th of January. The workshop is part of The World Wide Web Conference.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

techno-race and technological determinism

On a principal level I seriously dislike the pace of the technological development of everything digital. There's no way you can buy a new computer, digital camera, cell-phone, mp3-player and plasma-TV every second year just because new means bigger, faster, better, and to a lower price. Even if you had the money. The production process is far too heavy. I don't want to be an uncritical consumer, even if, say, I donated my old stash to somebody else.

So, I just read an article by Paul E. Ceruzzi: Moore's Law and Technological Determinism published in Technology and Culture. I believe he has a point, arguing that technology does have a determining power (which doesn't mean that he's oblivious to the importance of social appropriation of technologies): "Computing power must increase because it can". Question is: how do I handle it.